The U.S. Space Force (USSF) is the space service branch of the U.S. Department of Defense, established in December 2019. Its primary role is to organize, train, and equip space forces to protect U.S. and allied interests in space by ensuring space superiority. The USSF manages space launch operations, satellite operations, space environment surveillance, and satellite defense, and partners with organizations like NASA on space domain awareness and planetary defense. Key areas of focus include missile warning, satellite communications, and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
The U.S. Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Lane 1 program opened RFPs on 2024-10-30 for on-ramping new launch providers to an IDIQ contract valued at $5,600,000,000 over five years.
Otter missions for Intelsat and the U.S. Space Force are projected to launch to geostationary orbit in 2026.
Starfish Space’s first two Otter missions for Intelsat and the U.S. Space Force will launch to geostationary orbit in 2026 and begin providing services thereafter.
Starfish Space secured a $37,500,000 contract from the U.S. Space Force.
The U.S. Space Force could see increased funding as part of broader efforts to enhance national security.
Firefly Aerospace demonstrated responsive space capability with the Alpha launch of the Space Force’s Victus Nox mission in September 2023, launching a spacecraft on a 24-hour callup.
The U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command is the field command responsible for acquiring, developing, and delivering resilient space capabilities for the Department of Defense.
Rocket Lab is positioned to on-ramp to the U.S. Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Lane 1 program, which began accepting proposals in November 2024 for an IDIQ contract valued at $5,600,000,000 over five years.
The U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command Innovation Development Branch partnered with Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing Company, to develop and complete the Tetra-1 mission.
Tetra-1 provided training and experimental opportunities for more than 250 U.S. Space Force Guardians and Airmen.
SPHEREx will launch in April 2025 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base with the NASA heliophysics mission PUNCH flying as a secondary payload.
Neutron is eligible to compete for missions under the United States Space Force’s OSP-4 program, which is a separate $986,000,000 IDIQ contract.
After instrument integration, Millennium Space Systems will perform environmental testing and deliver the TRACERS spacecraft to Vandenberg Space Force Base for a projected 2025 launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 to sun-synchronous orbit.
SpaceX is targeting Monday, 2024-11-11 for a Falcon 9 launch of 24 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Vandenberg is now a Space Force Base located on California’s central coast.
The U.S. Space Force space tracking cataloged the four PIESAT-2 satellites in roughly 515 by 535-kilometer sun-synchronous orbits.
Falcon 9 launched 20 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Friday, 2024-11-08 at 10:14 p.m. PT.
A Falcon 9 launched 23 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Thursday, 2024-11-07 at 3:19 p.m. ET.
SpaceX scheduled two Starlink launches for 2024-11-07: one from Vandenberg Space Force Base and one from Cape Canaveral.
SpaceX is targeting a Falcon 9 launch from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base for Monday, 2024-11-11 to deploy Group 9-11 of Starlink smallsats with a launch window from 9:07 p.m. to 1:07 a.m. PST.